Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Gihan Perera is an old acquaintance, currently visiting his country of origin, Sri Lanka. He is chronicling his current visit to the coastal village his people came from at his blog.

Some of his descriptions are devastating:

We headed toward Galle and the office of the Southern Fisheries Solidarity office. We did not travel far before we encountered amazing destruction. Just before Hikaduwa, in an area called Thelawatta, began a never ending campground. Literally, the entire area looked like an American national park campground. What appeared to be campground facilities were the foundations of what used to be homes. Thousands upon thousands of them all down Galle road. The only thing that remained were fragments of homes and churches with huge holes through brick walls, or just a brick wall, but mostly just brick remnants. I would say it was like a war zone, but there was little debris for the amount of destruction. The sea had taken that too. It looked more like a giant coral reef along a sea bed. Every once in a while people like fish would come out of the walls, behind which they are still living.

But bad as the tsunami was, the Sri Lankan government's push for tourist development is about to make the lives of the survivors even worse. Telling the traumatized people that another wave will certainly come soon, fisherpeople are forced to move inland.

In their place, tourist hotels will be built on the beaches. Gihan again:

It is a massive plastic reconstruction. The plan forces fishermen and entire communities to move out and make way for modern superhighways, shopping centers, and mega hotels.

It is a disaster.…Those who suffered the most are again being washed away. And it won't work. The coastal areas are already experiencing a tremendous population increase and heavy land pressures as more and more people are displaced from farming lands in the interior. This policy will result in nothing but squatter zones along the tourist belt and a never-ending process of trying to bulldoze them.

And OUR aid we've donated is going toward the forced removals:

What’s worse, the scheme is being funded by YOUR generositiy. All the international aid organizations are being forced to funnel their money and programs through the Sri Lankan government. All the good people who thought they were giving their money to help directly effected communities, may actually be helping to displace them.

The least we can do is demand that our government and the charities to which we contributed not add to human misery in Sri Lanka.

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What is this blog for?

This San Francisco purveyor of graffiti has it right. When times are bleak -- when country and planet sink under the barely restrained sway of greed, raw power, and fear -- it's time to restate what matters.

I write here to preserve and kindle hope for a national and global turn toward multi-racial, economically egalitarian, gender non-constricting, woman affirming, and peace choosing democracy that preserves the habitability of earth for all. There's a big order -- but what else is there to do but struggle for this? Not much.

Topics range from the minuscule to the transcendent to the global, from dire to delightful. I am not an optimist, but I refuse to allow myself to wallow within the easy bias that everything is going to always be awful. Good also happens; love lives too.

I've been yammering here about activism, politics, history, racism and other occasional horrors and pleasures since 2005. I intend to continue as long as the opportunity exists. In this time, that means activism and chronicling resistance. Perhaps it always has, one way and another.

About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. Will work for justice.